January 1, 2009 - The pressure group, Clean Air Netherlands, says the ban on smoking in bars and restaurants that began July 1, 2008 has so far been a failure. It maintains a majority of bars are not observing the new legislation because the authorities are not enforcing it strictly enough.

The group wants establishments taken to court if they are regularly found flouting the ban, but it also wants individual smokers fined. Clean Air Netherlands says it received 3,000 complaints in a single month about people still smoking, mostly from people who work in bars and restaurants.

1 comments:

I live in the Netherlands and I have noticed that, all the bars and restaurants I go into have the smoking ban enforced, I haven't been in one bar where people are openly smoking. I thought the ban had really worked here in the Netherlands. Of course there are going to be people who have a disregard for the law, but that is everywhere, not only here.....